My very long review and comments for Warlock

[UncleJJ]

The current system allows for excellent city planning and resource control. Don't fudge it up, for those of us who actually can do it and enjoy it, just because you don't like ICS, and can't let go of your pet solution.

EDIT: Also, remember those nice roads you can currently build with your improvements? Yeah say goodbye to them too in your model. Just lost one layer of strategy, for no benefit.

I agree, the current system works really well and gives us a fast paced game. Another thing that increasing the spacing of cities will do is slow the game down, by slowing down the development of the economy. Many games are won once the player has built up the economy enough to finance Elite or temple units and give them lots of perks, slowing that down will simply make games take longer. That will be detrimental.

@Hassat Hunter: If you really believe that spacing your cities 4 tiles apart will result in a better game why not play test this idea? Play several games where you impose this limitation on your own city settling and then come back and tell us how much better the game is. Obviously the AI will settle some of its cities 3 tiles apart but this won't matter too much as the game is often over by the time you start capturing large numbers of AI cities. I and others would be more convinced by your arguments if you had made some effort to investigate the overall effects of your suggestion.

JJ

[larienna]

You must have wielded a very big army with barely any cities *at all* if you have just +10 gold and +5 mana...
Maybe next time less warfare, more building?

After destroying the first AI, I had around 7 cities. My capital was surrounded by water (badly placed) and 1 city I campured from the AI only had 4 building space. Each city had around 2-3 units for defense and there was between 10-20 units on the field (which included imps). I had at most 2-3 non-basic units in my army, else they were all warriors, rogues or archers(forgot the name).


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If you really can't wait, demolish and rebuild closer by... I think the gap should be 6. So you can still take up every block, but it takes planning, and is time-consuming. And probably not the ideal buildplan for maximum profit. All good stuff, no?

6 is way too much. I would suggest 4 space. Else there will bee too much wasted space on the map since too much space will be locked. You can allow a light overlapping.

If you really believe that spacing your cities 4 tiles apart will result in a better game why not play test this idea? Play several games where you impose this limitation on your own city settling and then come back and tell us how much better the game is.

Increasing city space to 4 is not only for the player but also for the AI. BY having city more away from each other you increase the efficiency of the AI for city developments. Probably the AI would have not built a city with only 4 building space available if the spacing was 4 tiles.

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It's certainly more clear and less 'darn my food city took my gold mine' than the current system of expansion.

The problem is not city placement, it's city versatility. Like explained in the original post, the current economic system force the player to focus a city one 1 thing. If city were more versatile, you would not have the problem above.

Thanks for the comments so far.

I hope someday the game will be modable to make these minor changes.

[Lyfa]

I agree, the current system works really well and gives us a fast paced game. Another thing that increasing the spacing of cities will do is slow the game down, by slowing down the development of the economy. Many games are won once the player has built up the economy enough to finance Elite or temple units and give them lots of perks, slowing that down will simply make games take longer. That will be detrimental.

@Hassat Hunter: If you really believe that spacing your cities 4 tiles apart will result in a better game why not play test this idea? Play several games where you impose this limitation on your own city settling and then come back and tell us how much better the game is. Obviously the AI will settle some of its cities 3 tiles apart but this won't matter too much as the game is often over by the time you start capturing large numbers of AI cities. I and others would be more convinced by your arguments if you had made some effort to investigate the overall effects of your suggestion.

JJ

Slight addition, 4 hexes apart is very different from the proposed 6 in the sense that it doesn't carry the out ring expansion problem. So play testing on 4 hexes does little to evaluate that problem. On the other hand it would do absolutely nothing to ICS either, so I propose rather testing it on the earlier proposed 6.

[Hassat Hunter]

you can't get the resources on the outer ring untill about 70 turns into the game

Slight exageration, prosperity and... place the damn city closer. Of course that's not really an option for the capital, true. But it is for any other city.

at which point the game is usually either won or lost already.

Assumptions against AI will prove different in MP-play...

See that nice silver resource 4 hexes from your capital?

How often does that happen? Seriously? And if it does, just your bad luck. But then again, the opponent can have the same happen to him/her.

The reason it's a chore is not because I don't know how to check for good city locations, it's because now I have to count to 6 in every direction making sure I won't enforce that situation I just mentioned on my future cities.

You already have to right now anyways, or suffer similar situations which are far harder to 'control' or predict.

It's the part where your next cities will be shafted where the problem is.

Indeed. Place cities in consideration where you want your other cities, rather than just planting them down everywhere just to have one massive kingdom path.

What it is, is a useless layer of complexity.

And here are so many people complaining Warlock lacks complexity. Although I agree "useless" would be bad. I just don't agree it would be useless, instead making city spread better and more important. Which is from where I play, a good improvement upon the current situation.

I don't know if you've noticed, but there are resources on the map more closely than once every 6 hexes.

Indeed I noticed. The current situation lets you nab both. For mine, you would have to make some considerations, maybe offer quick access to one for the other. I did say it added a strategic element, didn't I? Here's one such example. Of course if you see weighing pro/con of your new city as "useless extra complexity" you might see it differently.

So no matter how you plan your cities, you will get wasted resources.

I see you got my point. Good.

"But Lyfa you can just build the city closer you big dummy dummy" Except no you can't, because you just increased the minimum distance between cities, so any resource that is 3 or 4 hexes away from a city, is effectively wasted.

Then plan accordingly so there's no city blocking easy access to the resource. I believe you called it... "first grade math" IIRC. And yes, if you happen to construct a city 4 hexes from a resource it becomes hard to get. Which makes it more important to just use cities sparsely on key locations for vital resources rather than wherever you feel the need to. Which was also part of my suggestion's intention...

There's a reason you don't currently consider anything 3 hexes away a part of your new city in the current system. The reason being that you won't be able to utilize it anyway, untill it's too late.

Well, there's always the population spell. Might become a bit nicer too then wouldn't you say? Which isn't a bad thing!
Also, I repeat "too late" in SP would pretty much be the start of your battle with a MP-opponent.

The current system allows for excellent city planning and resource control.

I don't call "you can have them pretty much everywhere and every resource" as requiring any... *planning*

just because you don't like ICS

I'm worried about gamebalance than not liking it (which I stated many times over). Because I kind of see a big issue with many goldfarms and a kingdom having every resource available for balance. Which a battle against a lesser buffed AI or monster force quickly should show you too...

EDIT: Also, remember those nice roads you can currently build with your improvements? Yeah say goodbye to them too in your model. Just lost one layer of strategy, for no benefit.

Not really. You still get to use them one layer around your city, and later 2, and later 3. You just need to make a good "path" with inbetween non-road. Instead of having road EVERYWHERE. Which isn't much of a strategic decision either, would you say?

As you can see, I did think about the facets of the plan. That you see all it's benefits (having to choose instead of having cake and eat it) as cons is just a matter of opinion though... However, we will probably all quickly learn after MP goes live how balance will be with ICS. And my predicition, it's not good...

Many games are won once the player has built up the economy enough to finance Elite or temple units and give them lots of perks

Haven't we already gone over this. That's SP talk. With MP the opponent has exactly the SAME perked up temple units. Not low-life unbuffed scum as the AI. And then your game is far from over... actually, the war will just begin. I doubt MP-games will be over as fast as SP-games, unless someone leaves their capital undefended and it gets demolished.

slowing that down will simply make games take longer.

Games will last longer anyways with a competent oponent. Which means ICS resources added per turn, for more turns than SP, meaning a lot of units. And it goes on longer... and longer.
This is actually somewhat of a plan to make it last not as long by making such insane income a lot harder to acquire... but I already mentioned that before to you IIRC.

@Hassat Hunter: If you really believe that spacing your cities 4 tiles apart will result in a better game why not play test this idea? Play several games where you impose this limitation on your own city settling and then come back and tell us how much better the game is. Obviously the AI will settle some of its cities 3 tiles apart but this won't matter too much as the game is often over by the time you start capturing large numbers of AI cities. I and others would be more convinced by your arguments if you had made some effort to investigate the overall effects of your suggestion.

Maybe after the patch (I generally do so anyway, but never really made an effort to always do so). Still, it wouldn't show much against a weak AI where even the weakest strategies or self-nerfing can still give a win.
I doubt you would much like the result (less resources, choices between resource points) anyway compared to the current system.

After destroying the first AI, I had around 7 cities. My capital was surrounded by water (badly placed) and 1 city I campured from the AI only had 4 building space. Each city had around 2-3 units for defense and there was between 10-20 units on the field (which included imps). I had at most 2-3 non-basic units in my army, else they were all warriors, rogues or archers(forgot the name).

Wow, only 7 cities?
If one can defeat the AI with even that, I hardly do need to do any testing

6 is way too much. I would suggest 4 space.

3 or 4 is the current. So it wouldn't change much (if at all).

The problem is not city placement, it's city versatility. Like explained in the original post, the current economic system force the player to focus a city one 1 thing. If city were more versatile, you would not have the problem above.

It's pretty hard to view a system where it would be more versatile though, working properly with the current game. Making a city be able to produce gold and food and mana might be a bit overpowered, even if doing so in smaller quantities. Same with getting easy access to all top tier units in all cities :/

[Lyfa]

Slight exageration, prosperity and... place the damn city closer. Of course that's not really an option for the capital, true. But it is for any other city.

No I'm actually pretty sure I was under-rating it. Also we had the place the city closer thingy already, you made it impossible remember? And let's ignore the problems for the most important city in your empire, amirite?

Assumptions against AI will prove different in MP-play...

Yeah, but untill we actually get MP, it's a wee bit pointless to speculate about it. Of course one would need to play differently against a competent opponent than AI. For example, human opponents don't cheat, so killing them off might be easier...just saying...

How often does that happen? Seriously? And if it does, just your bad luck. But then again, the opponent can have the same happen to him/her.

yeah, I don't know about you, but for me it's pretty common to have a resource node or two at that distance from capitol. That's 42 hexes we're talking about in the danger zone. It'd be more accurate to ask, how often does that not happen?

You already have to right now anyways, or suffer similar situations which are far harder to 'control' or predict.

Only in the sense of, on which side of a particular resource do I place the city for maximum gain, and minimal hindrance for future cities. It's quite common to see a situation where you see a two resources separated by one or two empty hexes. By putting my city on the opposite side of resource A allows me to nab resource B for another city, that can use it better.

Indeed. Place cities in consideration where you want your other cities, rather than just planting them down everywhere just to have one massive kingdom path.

Yeah well no amount of consideration will save some resources, or push them so far back that they're essentially useless.

And here are so many people complaining Warlock lacks complexity. Although I agree "useless" would be bad. I just don't agree it would be useless, instead making city spread better and more important. Which is from where I play, a good improvement upon the current situation.

Funny thing, people complaining about a facet of a game on an internet forum. Good thing we always balance things around those well constructed complaints, amirite? Also I don't find there to be a lack of complexity in the game. Do you? Sure there are some balance issues which reduce the complexity, but I'd rather see the balance issues fixed than artificially make it more tedious, because you dislike ICS. To me useless in this instance means, unneeded, and something that doesn't really add strategic dept. Just makes it more tedious. You might disagree, and that is your right. Just note that this would be an unwanted change for some people, and you could achieve your goal in better ways. Like the one i suggested earlier.

Indeed I noticed. The current situation lets you nab both. For mine, you would have to make some considerations, maybe offer quick access to one for the other. I did say it added a strategic element, didn't I? Here's one such example. Of course if you see weighing pro/con of your new city as "useless extra complexity" you might see it differently.

See here's the thing though, no matter how you twist it, it would end in wasted resources, which I would rather not see just to fullfill your dislike of ICS. Come up with a better idea, and I might be ok with it. Untill that time though...

I see you got my point. Good.

So your point is wasted resources? Ooh, that's a nice gameplay mechanic right there, for so good reasons. It's a good thing there are never any rare resources close to each other. /sarcasm

Then plan accordingly so there's no city blocking easy access to the resource. I believe you called it... "first grade math" IIRC. And yes, if you happen to construct a city 4 hexes from a resource it becomes hard to get. Which makes it more important to just use cities sparsely on key locations for vital resources rather than wherever you feel the need to. Which was also part of my suggestion's intention...

Yeah, too bad you can't "plan city placement better" so well that you get all the resources no matter what, with their current density. See above for waste.

Well, there's always the population spell. Might become a bit nicer too then wouldn't you say? Which isn't a bad thing!
Also, I repeat "too late" in SP would pretty much be the start of your battle with a MP-opponent.

Two in fact. Too bad those are such underpowered spells in need of buffs, and oh so reliably available. Oh wait...

Also it's really nice that we add more luck factor to the fortune wheel of the spell research, by making some spells even more mandatory. There's no way that would have any balance issues in multiplayer, amirite?

Also what makes you think MP games would take more time? Cause I'd wager they're resolved faster than SP simply because the fights are more deadly, higher pressure for taking the initiative and the enemy won't regularily cheat more units out. You do realise the importance of taking the initiative in MP, right?

I don't call "you can have them pretty much everywhere and every resource" as requiring any... *planning*

Well it's not exactly complex planning, but you can still optimize city spots. Also see the close together resources example in the beginning.

I'm worried about gamebalance than not liking it (which I stated many times over). Because I kind of see a big issue with many goldfarms and a kingdom having every resource available for balance. Which a battle against a lesser buffed AI or monster force quickly should show you too...

Yeah the AI is kinda bad in using the resources. That clearly means we should handicap ourselves to compensate. I mean there's no way this change would make AI even worse at using the resources...oh wait...

And the game is currently balanced around having rather large income available, what with the perk prices, and elite unite prices, not to mention upkeep. Now does it get a bit silly towards the very end game? Yeah it does, and that is worth looking into, but the game is pretty much won at that point in any case, so not exatly something you should make sweeping changes around.

Not really. You still get to use them one layer around your city, and later 2, and later 3. You just need to make a good "path" with inbetween non-road. Instead of having road EVERYWHERE. Which isn't much of a strategic decision either, would you say?

The gaps would be huge before the 10 pop. That's not a road, that's a little bonus movement on occasion. Currently it is a strategic decision in the start of the game, but hey, since you only want to balance things around for end game only...

As you can see, I did think about the facets of the plan. That you see all it's benefits (having to choose instead of having cake and eat it) as cons is just a matter of opinion though... However, we will probably all quickly learn after MP goes live how balance will be with ICS. And my predicition, it's not good...

I can see you thought you did. You just don't have any consideration for other players preferences. And before you accuse me of the same, I did offer an alternative solution a while ago. Also, I don't think ICS will be as much of a problem in MP. Why? Because unlike the AI, a smart enemy won't let you just freely spam out cities. Also, the bigger your empire, and smaller your cities, the harder it is to defend.

Haven't we already gone over this. That's SP talk. With MP the opponent has exactly the SAME perked up temple units. Not low-life unbuffed scum as the AI. And then your game is far from over... actually, the war will just begin. I doubt MP-games will be over as fast as SP-games, unless someone leaves their capital undefended and it gets demolished.

Yeah cause there's no way smart opponents would take measures to prevent your expansion, and will just sit on their hands untill everyone has full elite armies, amirite? The only reason you are able to freely ICS currently is because the AI gives you free reign to do so. Also note, that with several people expanding fast, the available land for expansion is lessened.

Games will last longer anyways with a competent oponent. Which means ICS resources added per turn, for more turns than SP, meaning a lot of units. And it goes on longer... and longer.
This is actually somewhat of a plan to make it last not as long by making such insane income a lot harder to acquire... but I already mentioned that before to you IIRC.

Again assuming the games will last that long...

Maybe after the patch (I generally do so anyway, but never really made an effort to always do so). Still, it wouldn't show much against a weak AI where even the weakest strategies or self-nerfing can still give a win.
I doubt you would much like the result (less resources, choices between resource points) anyway compared to the current system.

You're right, I wouldn't. Though you should be aware that I don't usually space my cities 3 hexes apart now either. Not the best available tactic. I do make some effort to get more optimized city locations, even without you making it a bother. Only difference is, i don't waste resources.

It's pretty hard to view a system where it would be more versatile though, working properly with the current game. Making a city be able to produce gold and food and mana might be a bit overpowered, even if doing so in smaller quantities. Same with getting easy access to all top tier units in all cities :/

This part I agree with.

[Naburimannu]

The problem is not city placement, it's city versatility. Like explained in the original post, the current economic system force the player to focus a city one 1 thing. If city were more versatile, you would not have the problem above.

It's not a problem, it's a feature. That's a tradeoff you have to make, and part of the strategy of the game. It's been important to my last two Impossible Islands games that so many of my cities had goldresources, I didn't want to give them up to make food cities - and was lured into committing errors.

[Great Warlock]

Hear, hear!

[Hassat Hunter]

Well, we obviously aren't going to agree if you think you should get everything on the map, while I rather want to make the resources instead of automatic-gain alls a choice of which to go for which not. If that means resources are "wasted", yes, they are. But that's the whole point of it. You need to choose between resources, instead of taking them all. Think ahead. Sacrifice some to gain other things. Make difficult choices.
I think that would add a definite strategy to constructing cities which is currently lacking, besides the city spam nerfing (which is only a side-effect really), which ultimately makes the game more interesting. Maybe just me.

Less roads also means you can get longer to get units from one side of your empire to the other in case of attack, making defending bigger empires even more difficult. Which is a further balancer in Multiplayer games...

[Lyfa]

Thing is though, it's not really a strategy upgrade. Because nearly every time you know exactly what resources to take. It might require some strategizing the first time you go through it, but after that it's pretty automatic. It's not much of a choice between two resources when one is clearly better, and there is a pretty rigid order of what's better in this game. It just makes it so that some resources are wasted.

As for roads and multiplayer, I don't really know how that would balance multiplayer in any fashion. Just makes taking initiative even more important. And makes it so once you're committed to an attack, you're really not pulling back even if someone backstabs you in the meantime. So I'd say it kind of limits strategy in that sense, but not a big issue either way.

[player1 fanatic]

Current city distance, in my opinion, is *fun*. Restricting it further would just make game not fun.

Have cool resource 3 tiles away from current city.
You really want it to exploit it now? NOPE! You need to make city 2 tiles away from it, and wait 25 turns to exploit it, if 4 tiles radius is used.

If any higher radius is used, you'll need to wait for 75+ turns for current city to get to size 3, which is more then half of full game. Again, not fun.

Not to mention annoyance if 3 tiles anyway resource is holy ground you planned to use to get holy ground victory...

[Snap Wilson]

If this game has taught me anything, it's that I can't properly count to three.

I don't mind the city distance. Overlap means fewer hexes for you to use and there is strategy in placement anyway. Those resources that are tantalizingly out of reach are all part of the fun.

[larienna]

And here are so many people complaining Warlock lacks complexity.

Sometimes it's better to have simpler games. One advantage is that it takes less time to play. The important is to make sure that the extra complexity does not end up in a chore like this is the case of many things in CIV.

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Wow, only 7 cities?
If one can defeat the AI with even that, I hardly do need to do any testing

I did not use city spaming because I did not know that was THE thing to do. So being used with other 4x games to leave a lot of space between cities, this is what I did.

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3 or 4 is the current. So it wouldn't change much (if at all).

People said the the current is 3, so +1 is 4. A small change has great impact because a simple +1 can almost double the required space. Don't forget that it's +1 radius, so +1 in all directions (for example, +1 east and west, so in total +2 hex used.)

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It's pretty hard to view a system where it would be more versatile though, working properly with the current game. Making a city be able to produce gold and food and mana might be a bit overpowered, even if doing so in smaller quantities. Same with getting easy access to all top tier units in all cities :/

It's not a problem, it's a feature. That's a tradeoff you have to make, and part of the strategy of the game. It's been important to my last two Impossible Islands games that so many of my cities had goldresources, I didn't want to give them up to make food cities - and was lured into committing errors.

Well in MOM, each city produced gold, food and mana, that was not a problem. There was special resources like game and gems that give a special bonus, but it did not force the city to become dedicated to that resources. I think instead of giving one resource per city in large quantity, why not give all resources to all cities in lower quantity. Else I need 3 cities instead of 1 to get all my basic income (gold, food, mana)

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Less roads also means you can get longer to get units from one side of your empire to the other in case of attack, making defending bigger empires even more difficult. Which is a further balancer in Multiplayer games...

In most 4X games, I always found that units moves slowly. So I am happy with more roads.

[Hassat Hunter]

I did not use city spaming because I did not know that was THE thing to do. So being used with other 4x games to leave a lot of space between cities, this is what I did.

And did it ruin your game, prevent you from many vital resources etc. as Lyra claims?

People said the the current is 3, so +1 is 4. A small change has great impact because a simple +1 can almost double the required space. Don't forget that it's +1 radius, so +1 in all directions (for example, +1 east and west, so in total +2 hex used.)

You could still easily "cover" cities with other cities...

Well in MOM, each city produced gold, food and mana, that was not a problem. There was special resources like game and gems that give a special bonus, but it did not force the city to become dedicated to that resources. I think instead of giving one resource per city in large quantity, why not give all resources to all cities in lower quantity. Else I need 3 cities instead of 1 to get all my basic income (gold, food, mana)

That would require a major change in balance though, since food and mana is pretty useless in mass qualities in this game. So a few dedicated cities does fine. Having all cities suddenly make food... well... there goes the prosperity (+population) system.

In most 4X games, I always found that units moves slowly. So I am happy with more roads.

Could be a spell too (terraforming).
Also I think IMO such roads should not only give yourself a speed boost, but the opponent too. Yes, you get the speed benefit, but so does your opponent.

[Lyfa]

And did it ruin your game, prevent you from many vital resources etc. as Lyra claims?

Oh such hyperbole. But even you can't deny that with more cities, and with more freedom of placement you get more resources. That's just maths. You can disagree with anything else I say, but that one you'll have to take up with the scientists

[Naburimannu]

Well in MOM, each city produced gold, food and mana, that was not a problem. There was special resources like game and gems that give a special bonus, but it did not force the city to become dedicated to that resources. I think instead of giving one resource per city in large quantity, why not give all resources to all cities in lower quantity. Else I need 3 cities instead of 1 to get all my basic income (gold, food, mana)

This is perhaps the core of strategy in this game. If all your cities produce all 3 resources, they become relatively indistinguishable. This is how things always seem to play out in Civ for me. But with Warlock's strong rewards for specialization, there's a reason to remember the difference between cities. There are hard choices to make - how will I specialize this city, given the nearby resources? AND whether it's a border or interior city? AND the other cities I've already built (which are built incrementally, and specialized early in their lifetime, so you can't do global optimization)? AND my current needs vs long-term needs? OR is there some compelling reason not to specialize this city?

You don't need 3 cities to get all your basic income - that's just the most efficient thing to do. In my opinion, it's also easy enough to do to not be a burden.

[larienna]

About setting the city minimum space to 6 hex radius

There could be an alternative way to do this have a whide gap between cities without having areas of the board locked out because your are bumped by all other cities around.

I tried making a MOM board game, and I have analysed tons of maps model. One of the map model consist in using a large hex to represent an area that contains the whole city. Here is some pictures to illustrate.



the other attachment does not work, so here is the URL

http://bgd.lariennalibrary.com/uploa...Craft_PA_2.jpg

So how could this be applied to warlock? You could have a 2nd larger hex map that contains the area where the city can be built. Then withing this area you could have the small hex map with a small radius at the center of the hex where you can place your city. The placement will determine which resources you will get sooner than another.

The advantage of this method is that if 2 neighboring cities are adjacent to each other (in the larger hex map) if one city is placed to the left and the other one placed on the right. Even if they are closer to each other, they will not bump each other.

So with the following methiod, you make sure that you can have a lot of space between cities, that they will be evently distributed on the map, and you will never have a bump area where so city can be built because of the impossibility to fit in a 6 hex radius city.

I hope my explanations were clear. Still I don't think that will never happen in warlock.

By thinking About it, the civ board game use a similar technique:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/7...the-board-game

Each square tile can hold a city, but the city can be located in 4 different spot in the middle of the square.

Enjoy!

[Spyre2000]

If you really can't wait, demolish and rebuild closer by... I think the gap should be 6. So you can still take up every block, but it takes planning, and is time-consuming. And probably not the ideal buildplan for maximum profit. All good stuff, no?

One of the problems that people seem to forget about when suggesting the distance between cities increase is that they are not the only player in the game. I've already had times where there is a resource 3 tiles away from one of my cities but because the AI built a city 4 tiles away from the resource I can't build a new city there to claim it. The setup looks like this A00R000B with my city as A the AI is B with R as resource. There are other cities to the north and south as well about equally far away creating this dead zone.

The more you increase the minimum gap between cities the larger this dead zone becomes where no one can build. So with a gap of 6 you could easily end up with 12 hex radius areas, or larger depending on terrain, with no cities in them because of building limits. It doesn't add to interesting strategic placement, it simply adds to the frustration of the player. Especially in a system where city management is already fairly limited.

Creating a real choice requires an additional "resource" like happiness in Civ5 or corruption in Civ3. Additionally, in order for this to be a valid strategic choice there must be pros and cons to going tall or going wide (which also requires being able to manage population growth/size). Otherwise it's just making one better than the other, which is just six of one and half dozen of the other, not a valid strategic choice.

I suggested the ability to manage population growth in another thread with food but several people seem to disagree not only with the idea but the idea of controlling the growth at all. Though those same people didn't think city spam was a problem and saw it simply as a play style choice.

But the game does need a way to control population growth if they are going to truly address the issue of city spam. The two most common suggestions are increase the distance between cities and increase the cost of settlers. Both of these fail to address the problem and either make it so less cities fit in the same area, or cities simply cost more to setup in the first place. The benefits of making as many cities as you can is still there. I ran the numbers for city of your own race it takes 24 turns to reach size 5 and 75 turns to reach size 10. There is no real way to speed this up as the only spell that boost city growth rarely becomes available before turn 100. Having to wait 75 turns for a city to grow large enough to grab a resource is unacceptable when games on normal size maps can easily last under 80 turns for experienced players(I refer you to the 90 turn challenge thread). That means most cities will never reach radius 3 to enclose those rare resources.

Even in longer games where the game goes a lot longer it's easy to see some of your earliest cities not reaching size 10 until around turn 100. This doesn't even take into account any captured cities that are of the other races with their growth penalties. They might never see size 10 even in longer games.

Personally I city spam because it is the best strategy regardless of personal choice on play style. Not city spamming is simply a choice to intentionally hinder yourself regardless of how you try to justify it. Even with city spam though I often plan my city placement layout so that I can have multiple resources in their borders whenever possible. Give the time it takes to reach radius 3 I never plan any cities with resources that are 3 tiles away unless terrain requires it, such as mountains on the other side. It is just better to get a new city and build near that resource, even if it's 4 tiles away instead of the min 3. But if you really think waiting 75 turns to access that resource is somehow making your empire more efficient then you can do that.

Personally I really can't wait for MP to come out because all these non-city spamming strategies are only viable as long as the enemy doesn't do it either. And the AI frankly sucks both at city management and expansion of new cities.

Another game similar to Warlock, in that it tries to follow in MoM's footsteps, is Fallen Enchantress. The game is in beta and back in the previous game which was Elemental:WoM they had the very same city spam problem. In the sequel however it seems they took the commonly recommend approach of increase the distance between cities and went with 9 tiles. They did not address the problem though as city spam is still the way to go they are just not more spread out as they dot the map really far from each other. And that dead zone problem I mentioned is there as well too. In one game I had this massive empty space between me and the other empire because our cities were just close enough that it was about 1-2 tiles more that were required to build another city between our two empires, thus leaving a 15 tile gap of nothing. I also end up with cities 7-8 tiles from an ocean or mountain so nothing can be built in that area cause the terrain is blocking where the next city should go.

City spam is still the way to go it's just more frustrating with larger distance requirement and city placement because less about strategic choice and more about how can I fit more cities in this very limited amount of space. At least with the lower distance requirement it's easier to not pack them as tight as you can in favor of getting an extra resource within the border of a curtain city. Playing FE beta I felt I was very limited on city placement because the large distance meant even more more extra space away could put the following city in a mountain, off the coast, or stuck in that dead zone between empires.

[Hassat Hunter]

Capture neutral city, destroy neutral city, place own city at prefered location.
Neutrals being more powerful, annoying and bothersome? Check!

I can't see any problem with the "nothing area" between opposing settlements at war. That's completely realistic of a real situation. Do the Korea's build cities next to each other? No, they have a 'no-go area' between their 2 countries. Same would be the case there. I think the size mentioned from the other game's a bit too extreme though (10 hexes), but with a 6-hex limit such crazy situations can't exist. The max would be 5 hexes of "nothing", which can be compensated by search and destroy like a neutral city (or just keep it in occupied land... your choice).

Just my vision...

[larienna]

An idea that was proposed for elemental was to have a administrative management cost. So the more cities you have the more you need to pay in administration because you have more to manage. The original goal was to balance large empires vs small empires.

But a similar idea could be implemented in warlock so that if you city spam, you will cover more terrain, but you administration cost will be higher so you will lose more gold than if you took the time to build larger cities.

[Hassat Hunter]

It kinda tries to do so already with the food cost, which is exactly what you mention "administrative cost" is. However it's pretty easy to get your food on a positive level with just a few dedicated cities to that cause to feed plenty of cities...

Also the administrative costs would be pretty high if they are to offset the amount of gold a city can produce additionally, which is high.